


Free and young and we can feel none of it

by pinkpurpleblue



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Character Study, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Prompt Fill, Shaky Hands, Whumptober 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-01
Packaged: 2020-11-09 08:48:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20850707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkpurpleblue/pseuds/pinkpurpleblue
Summary: When shit goes down: you give Nancy the gun.





	Free and young and we can feel none of it

There's a lot of unspoken things in the group, their weird group of people that know the truth about Hawkins, about what lies underneath the town. You can only deal with monsters and laboratories and all the weird shit that goes with them before habits form, kind of like routine, more like unwritten rules. Most of them are pretty obvious: when shit goes down, the kids go with Steve. When shit goes down: Hopper gets the first phone call. When shit goes down: you give Nancy the gun.

If Nancy had known that the first time she ever held a gun and shot at cans with Jonathan Byers, the weird kid at school that was never seen without a camera, would lead to her getting handed a gun every time there was demodogs and Russians she doesn't know if she would have done it. She's a damn good shot, she knows she is. But she's also a liar if she says that she's confident in that fact all the time.

God, she doesn't even know if it's because of all the adrenaline or that she's just always been good under pressure, but when she thinks back to aiming a shotgun at the mind flayer or pumping six shots into Billy Hargrove's windshield or any of the other times she's held a gun; she thinks they may have all been a fluke. It's so different at those moments that when she looks back at it, it scares her. 

Mostly because her hands shake all the time.

Ever since that first year, she's had a problem with it. And it's not all the time, but most of it; she'll be holding a pencil and her hands will shake and she'll drop it. Or she'll check on the pistol in her underwear drawer, because yes, of course, she has a pistol in her underwear drawer, and she'll pick it up with the same ease she does every time she handles a gun and then ten minutes later she'll almost drop a kitchen knife into her lap because her hands won't stop shaking.

She asked Jonathan about it once; because the only thing she can think of is that she nicked a nerve that first year when they cut across their palms, and maybe that fucked up a nerve somehow, and that makes her hands shake. But Jonathan just looks at her in that way where he's concerned but trying desperately not to show it and she immediately backtracks, because Nancy feels so stupid at that moment. She'd seen his photos and each one of them was so still and perfect and deep down she worries that he'll stop following that unspoken thing.  
She worries that when shit goes down: he won't hand her the gun.

It sits inside her chest and her stomach; it follows her around. The shaking gets worse, and Nancy knows they never shake when holds a gun; when she fires it. But she still worries that one day she'll shoot somebody on accident, that she'll miss a shot she needs to make because her hands will stutter. She worries even more that she won't get handed the gun at all. 

All of the worry dissipates not even a week later, when Will has a flashback, and there's a weird light thing going on in the sky (Murray tells them later that it was debunked as a low flying military aircrafts; so regular government secret bullshit, but nothing that includes monsters and Hawkins.); and when they all come together; Jonathan hands her their old hunting rifle.

Her hands don't stop shaking, but she doesn't notice it much anymore. They don't shake when it matters, and she handles the shotguns, the rifles, and the pistols with ease, as she stares down the monster of the week.


End file.
